This world is constantly starved of mana.

Breathing feels suffocating, as if a thin film has been stretched across the back of the throat. When you look up at the night sky, the stars are visible, yet even their light seems somehow unreliable and blurred. The earth itself is like a human suffering from chronic malnutrition, slowly wasting away while still desperately clinging to life.

Magic is woven into daily life. Lighting a fire, drawing water, even manipulating the wind—none of it can be achieved without the fuel known as mana. But that fuel began to show its bottom decades ago.

The reason war never ends is simple. If you produce enough corpses, crystals are formed. From the mounds of remains piled on the battlefields, mana crystals eventually sprout. Crystals so beautiful they burn the eyes. Growing large enough to dwarf mountain ranges, they become the ultimate wealth for a nation. There are many cities in this world that could be called Crystal Capitals, built right at their base.

Crystals are mined, carved, turned into daily necessities, transformed into luxury goods, and lined up in markets as ornaments. They serve as tourism resources. People swarm around the crystals, laughing and continuing to consume.

That is why nations justify it. Territorial disputes, economic friction, religious differences. Anything will do. As long as there is a pretext, they send out troops and produce the dead. Because the more they kill, the more mountains of treasure roll beneath their feet.

In this world built upon this mad cycle, the sound of cannon fire echoes somewhere again today.